Audio Recordings

Audio recordings of my sermons and talks can be found here: New Church Audio

Finding Our Lost Sheep

A shepherd had a hundred sheep, but one of them was lost.  The Lord is our Shepherd, and He gives us His undivided attention when we are feeling lost.  But we are like shepherds too.  What are the "sheep" that we sometimes lose?  The parable of the lost sheep occurs twice in the gospels (Luke 15:1-7; Matt 18:10-14), in two different contexts.  It describes aspects of our repentance and regeneration.   What do all the characters in this parable represent?  What are the parts of us and other people that can become lost?  How should we treat those parts?

Here is the video for the Cathedral Family Talk

Here is the video for the Cathedral Adult Sermon

Here's the audio for the Cathedral Adult Sermon

"Love Your Enemies"

Earlier this month I had the opportunity to travel to Boulder Colorado and preach in the New Church of Boulder Valley.  I preached on the story of David, Nabal and Abigail in 1st Samuel chapter 25.  The sermon is called "Love Your Enemies."  It could also be called "Listening to Abigail."   It's about those times when we may feel like treating other people the way they treated us, rather than following the Golden Rule and treating other people the way we would like to be treated.   It's about not being cruel to others or to ourselves as we attempt to stand for both the truth and love.   You can watch the video here

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The "Perfect" Date Night

My wife and I have found that date nights are really important for the health of our marriage.  If you are married, I highly recommend fitting regular date nights into your schedule and budget.   We have found that it is more than worth the time and money. 

Sometimes we might have expectations about how a date night will go or should go.  I occasionally wonder what the elements are that make up a good date night.  The following is a little reflection on a story from the beginning of Emanuel Swedenborg’s book called Conjugial Love, and how it could apply to achieving the “perfect” date night.  

Sometimes we think that a date night will only be good if we can just get out of the house. Sometimes we think that a date night will only be good if we can just get to a certain favorite location.  Sometimes we think that a date night will only be good if we have an amazing conversation.  Sometimes we think that a date night will only be good if we have a fancy dinner and go to a movie or concert.   Sometimes we think that a date night will only be good if we get out for a walk in nature, or watch a beautiful sunset.  Sometimes we think that a date night will only be good if we spend a lot of money, somewhere expensive where we are waited on hand and foot, and everything goes exactly as we want it to go.   Sometimes I think that a date night will only be good if it goes exactly how I want it to go.   Sometimes we think that a date night will only be good if we include some sort of spiritual practice like reading the Word or praying.   

And yes, all of those things can certainly be factors in a good date night.  But I think a good date night doesn’t actually depend on any one of those external things. . . I think it depends more on whether as a couple we are expressing love and being useful to each other in some way.   When we mutually show each other that we genuinely care about each other, then it doesn't matter what we're actually doing, it turns out to be a great date night.  

(See Swedenborg’s work Conjugial Love paragraphs 2-10) 

"Spring" Break?

Ice.  Snow.  Spring?  Last week the church school where I work took its “Spring” Break.  Spring Break actually came early, due to two snow days at the end of the week before.  Spring technically begins on March 20th, at the end of this week.  When I was growing up we would  sometimes refer to Spring Break as “Dreary-Weather Break,” because it never seemed to quite line up with what we think of as the bright, warm feeling of Spring.   And even once Spring has technically begun, the warmth often seems to take its time about coming.   One year when I was in college, we were all "fooled" into thinking Spring had arrived, when we woke up on April 1st to one of the largest snowfalls of the winter.   

I was recently reminded of something said in the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, and that is that the rational (higher) part of our mind is regenerated before the natural (lower) part of our mind (see Secrets of Heaven 3493).  Spring comes to our rational mind before it comes to our natural mind, just like Spring technically arrives before it often feels like Spring.    In other words, we might sometimes feel frustrated that even though we’ve learned something about how to live our life better, and rationally committed ourselves to being a more useful, loving person. . . we can still feel stuck in our natural bad habits, like being stuck in the snow and ice during Spring Break.     It doesn’t feel fair or right.  And yet stepping back and looking at the big seasonal picture reminds us that we have made enormous progress since the middle of Winter.  Spring is coming in our minds, even with snow and ice on the ground of our lives.  

This is one of the reasons why practicing mindfulness can bring us into a state of peace.  Mindfulness gives us the bigger picture, and allows us to experience hope in the present as we trust in the Lord’s guidance amidst the confusing seasonal changes of our minds.   Spring is coming. 

A Day for Feasting

Here is the link to the audio of a Thanksgiving service I gave in Bryn Athyn in 2012.
Thanksgiving Service Audio.

A Wooden Church of Living Trees

Emanuel Swedenborg described

a church he once saw made out of living trees:

“They are built not of felled trees, but of ones growing in their native soil. . . .  From their earliest stages they arrange these trees in rows to form porticoes and walkways, shaping the branches while still supple, and cutting and pruning them, so that as they grow they will interlace and join to make the floor and pavement of the temple. They make the branches at the sides grow up to form walls, and overhead bend them into arches to make a roof. From these materials they construct with admirable skill a temple raised high above the ground. They make a way up composed of branches stretched out horizontally with no space between and firmly bound together. In addition they decorate such a temple both inside and out with various kinds of topiary work; and so they build up whole parks. . . . Sunlight is admitted through openings between the branches, and is everywhere passed through crystals, which turn the light around the walls into colors like the rainbow.”  (from Earths in the Universe paragraph 151).  

I’m always impressed by this description, and it gets my imagination going.  I think about how much patience must be involved in building a church out of living wood.  How many years would it have taken to achieve the finished state?  What must it be like to build with a living branch, knowing that it would be months and years before it arrived in its desired location?  What must it be like to know that most of the growth of this church was accomplished by the Builder rather than the builders? The builders would only occasionally make subtle adjustments—little turnings, little prunings—while the trees themselves kept on with their relentless and powerful reaching towards the sun.   And even once the church was “finished,” it would probably keep changing as the trees grow and change.   I think about how the finished product would be strong enough to withstand the strongest winds and storms, by retaining the quality of flexibility.  

What a wonderful image for how the life of religion (or the “church”) can grow inside each one of us, and in our community. We all grow and change on our paths towards the Lord’s love and wisdom.  Just like the building of their wooden churches, the growth of the state of the church in us takes a lot of patience.  Living wood is a symbol for the Lord’s goodness slowly growing inside of us (Secrets of Heaven 3969.10; see also Heaven and Hell 223), and this can take a long time.  The Lord is the One that makes it grow, not us.  We can do our small part; turning a little this way in our life, pruning a little of this out of our life.  And even though we are working towards the state of regeneration or spiritual rebirth, we are never really finished growing.  And if we truly have that goodness as a part of our life, we can feel safe in the strong flexibility that that provides (see Secrets of Heaven 7068).  

“I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.”  (John 15:5)  

"What Would Love Do?" Video

This is a video which I got to be a part of, which is geared towards teens, and was produced by General Church Education for the "What Would Love Do?" Journey series.

A Suffering World

Last week we remembered 13 years since the horrific events of September 11th.  It is still vividly burned into my mind, and seems like just yesterday.  I also remember the outpouring of love and aid that happened as our nation came together and addressed so much suffering.  

I was talking with someone recently about how the media allows us to be aware of more of the world than we once were able to be aware of, which has both pros and cons.  The cons involve the fact that there are horrific things happening throughout the world all the time.  People dying from wars, abuse, hunger, sickness.  We can sometimes feel overwhelmed by how much is wrong with the world, and we can feel very small in the face of it all.   It can sometimes make us feel depressed, and even guilty for experiencing happiness while knowing and seeing that others are suffering.  

But it is also something that can make us more aware of the good things we can be doing to make the world a better place.  “When anyone looks with charity on someone in distress. . . a feeling of compassion is aroused. And since the feeling is stirred by the Lord, it is an alerting by Him. Indeed when people who are perceptive have feelings of compassion they know that they are being alerted by the Lord to offer help.”  (Emanuel Swedenborg - "Secrets of Heaven" paragraph 6737).  

In the next Bryn Athyn small-group Bible-study program called "What Would Love Do?"—which is a study of the last parable in Matthew chapter 25—we will be focussing on other people’s suffering.  People who are spiritually hungry, thirsty, lonely, vulnerable, sick and trapped.  It may feel like a focus on what is negative in ours and others’ lives, but it is something that can really inspire those feelings of compassion that allow us to feel the Lord’s love more, and therefore bring happiness and peace into our world.  Every little act of love in this world is an integral piece of the Lord’s powerful presence for goodness in this world.  There is a lot of suffering in the world.  But there is also a lot that love can do.  "In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world”  (John 16:33).  

Different Ways

In Joshua chapter 22, the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half of Manasseh traveled back across the Jordan river to the East side, where they had chosen to inherit their land.  This was a different choice than the rest of the tribes had made and it worried many of the western tribes.   As these three eastern tribes traveled back to their chosen home, they built an altar at the Jordan.  When the other tribes heard this, their worry turned to alarm.  Were they now going to turn away from the Lord and worship other gods on this new altar?  The western tribes, led by Phinehas the son of the high priest, chased after the eastern tribes and confronted them at the Jordan, ready to do battle with their fellow tribes-people, and to seek to prevent evil from being done.  After being confronted, the eastern tribes explained that, far from turning away from the Lord, their altar was built to be a witness and a reminder that the western and eastern tribes were still one people, despite being divided by the river Jordan and living in different lands.  The eastern tribes were faithful to the Lord.  The western tribes were satisfied with this answer and, in the end, the evil of unjustified warfare was prevented through this reconciliation.  

Sometimes we too can look at our “fellow tribes-people” and worry about their choices.  We can see them choosing to live in different spiritual states and worshipping in different ways.  We can worry that they might be turning away from the Lord.  But often times—especially when we are looking at externals (the east side of the Jordan)—we can make false assumptions about other people’s intentions, like the western tribes did.   We can assume that other people are not following the Lord, when in fact they might be,  but in different ways and in different lands.  Hopefully in the various confrontations we may engage in, we can seek for understanding and avoid warfare.  If we can remember what unites us: love to the Lord and love to our neighbor, which is the altar of love built out of the whole stones of truths from the Word, then we can be reminded that even though we differ in our choices, tastes, perspectives and opinions, we can still all be one people.  “Then Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest said to the children of Reuben, the children of Gad, and the children of Manasseh, ‘This day we perceive that the Lord is among us.’” (Joshua 22:31).  

Keeping Up With Esau

Here are the links to a sermon and talk that I gave at the Bryn Athyn Cathedral, called "Keeping Up With Esau."   It's about moving from a place of simply doing what's right, to actually loving to do what's right.

Here's the video of the family talk,

And here's the adult sermon: video version and audio version.

A Doctrinal Foundation for a Gender Inclusive Clergy in the General Church

This is a paper I wrote in May 2014 for the council of the clergy in the General Church of the New Jerusalem, which is a Christian denomination based on the Bible and the works of Emanuel Swedenborg.  (There are many references to Swedenborg's writings in the paper, which are often simply referred to as the "Writings."  Quotes from the passages in his books are traditionally referred to using abbreviations, such as HH for Heaven and Hell, TCR for True Christian Religion.)  At the time of the writing of this paper, the tradition and policy of the General Church is that of a male-only priesthood, of which I am a member.  In writing and sharing this paper I am not speaking on behalf of the organization.  I'm not saying anyone is right or wrong. This is simply my own individual understanding of what the doctrines say in regards to gender in the priesthood.  This paper (book) is very long because this conversation has been around for a long time, and a comprehensive approach involves examining a large number of passages and doctrines.  My hope is that this will be a useful contribution to a discussion which seeks to be guided by the Lord in His Word.  The paper can be read here:  A Doctrinal Foundation for a Gender Inclusive Clergy in the General Church. 

Snow

It seems we often have a kind of love-hate relationship with snow.  It’s very pretty and festive.  It’s fun to play in.  It sometimes allows for the joy of snow-days.  But on the other hand, it causes disruptions in us being able to do our jobs, it causes driving difficulties and accidents.  It can cause power outages where we are left in the cold and the dark.  And it sometimes allows for the frustration of snow-days.    Snow represents the truth, because it is white and made from water (see Secrets of Heaven 8459; Apocalypse Revealed 47.6).  But it really represents truth without love, because it is cold:  “All this too may be used to form an idea of what a member of the Church is like when their faith is combined with charity - they are like a garden, like a park. But when faith is not combined with charity, they are like a solitary waste, like land covered with snow.” (Secrets of Heaven 7626).  

I think we can often have a similar love-hate relationship with that kind of truth.  The truth is needed for our regeneration.  It’s beautiful and fun to play with.  Simply thinking about the truth can be a nice break from the hard work of spiritual growth.  But truth without the warmth of goodness and love can be dangerous and treacherous.  Truth without love can pile up and get in the way.  It can cause major disruptions in our spiritual uses.  It can prevent us from being able to connect with other people in loving relationships.  It can leave us feeling cold.  We can get into accidents where we hurt people unintentionally.  And strangely enough, even though it's the truth, it can leave us in the dark.  

But if we allow the warmth of the Lord’s love to flow into our lives, then that same truth which caused problems in the Winter of our lives, can be turned into nourishing water in the Spring, and seep into the ground of our minds and allow for all kinds of future spiritual growth.   So we have to be careful with the truth, and especially truth without love.  But it’s all part of the Lord’s amazing creation.  

“For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do not return there, but water the earth, and make it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.”  (Isaiah 55:10-11) 

Changing Leaves

 I love the Fall for the beauty of its changing leaves. I’m looking forward to that beauty as we begin this new season. What might be symbolized in our lives by the leaves turning colors and falling to the ground? The teachings for the New Church describe leaves as a symbol for the truths in our lives:

 “The symbolism of a leaf as truth is established by numerous passages in the Word comparing us to, or actually calling us, trees. In those places, fruit symbolizes the good espoused by charity and a leaf the truth to which it leads (and charity and truth also function the same way fruit and leaves do). In Ezekiel, for example: ‘Beside the river, on its bank, on this side and that, grows every food tree, whose leaf does not fall and whose fruit is not used up; month by month it is reborn, because its waters are going out from the sanctuary. And its fruit will serve as food, and its leaf, as medicine’ (Ezekiel 47:12; Revelation 22:2). The tree stands for the people of a church that embodies the Lord’s kingdom. The fruit stands for the good that results from love and charity, and the leaf, for the truth that develops out of it. That truth is used for the instruction and regeneration of the human race, which is why the leaf is said to serve as medicine.” (Emanuel Swedenborg, Secrets of Heaven 885) 

 Truths serve to bring healing to our spiritual wounds. Green leaves represent truths that are alive for us in that healing way (see Swedenborg's book: Apocalypse Revealed 401; and Jeremiah 17:8), because the Lord’s life flowing into our natural world takes on a green color (see Revelation 4:3, and Apocalypse Revealed 232).

 I think it’s important to remember the distinction between our lives represented by trees, and the Lord’s life represented by the Tree of Life. The Lord’s life will never die, fail or change. But our lives change all the time, and our understanding of the Lord’s truth is one of those things that changes. “Rational truths are truths which most readily welcome spiritual truths, for a person's rational mind is the first receptacle of spiritual truths” (Apocalypse Revealed 936.3), just like leaves are the first receptacles for the light from the sun. But our own rational truths are simply what our mind is capable of producing and sustaining. They are finite compared with the Lord’s spiritual truths. And so our understanding of the truth changes, the leaves fall, we grow new ones in response to the
Light of the Lord’s Word, and the cycle continues.

 I think there is a special kind of beauty in coming to the humble realization that everything we think we know to be true is nothing compared to the Lord’s unchanging Divine Truth. Our leaves wither and die, but the Lord’s leaves are always green. Our leaves turning gold and red represent the death of those leaves, but the colors gold and red also represent higher forms of goodness and wisdom (Apocalypse Revealed 167, 232, 912), so there’s a special and good autumn beauty in that wise humility. As we come to the beautiful and humble realization that we know nothing compared to the Lord, we take on a special glow, we gently lay down our old concepts, and humbly acknowledge our need for the Lord’s light and heat. And then we can begin to form new concepts which bud in the Spring of our new spiritual life.

Overcoming Negativity

Here's the link to an article I have in the magazine "New Church Connection."  It's about Overcoming Negativity.

Video of my Dissertation Presentation

My theological school dissertation is entitled: "Comparing the Divine, Heavenly and Natural Marriages," and this is my presentation of that dissertation.  It compares the marriage of the Lord and the Church with the marriage of our hearts and minds, the marriage of goodness and truth, and the marriage of a husband and wife. This study is based on the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, and the doctrines of the Swedenborgian Christian denomination known as the General Church of the New Jerusalem. The dissertation can be read here.  The presentation can be watched here: Part One, Part Two.

Love's Prayer

Our Love, which comes from Heaven,
May Love’s name be hallowed.
May the kingdom of Love come.
May the will of Love be done,
On earth as it is in Heaven.
Love gives us this day our daily bread.
And Love forgives our debts (trespasses), as we also forgive our debtors (trespassers).
And Love doesn’t lead us into temptation,
But Love delivers us from evil.
For to Love belongs the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.
Amen.

My Dissertation

Here is my theological school dissertation. It's called "Comparing the Divine, Heavenly, and Natural Marriages." It's a study of the marriage of Divine Love and Divine Wisdom, the marriage of the Lord and the Church, the marriage of the Divine and Human within the Lord, the marriage of goodness and truth in creation, the marriage of the will and intellect in our minds, the marriage of our intellectual faith with our practical good works, the marriage of masculinity and femininity, and the marriages of husbands and wives. The study analyzes the differences and similarities between these different marriage. How far can we take these "analogies" in different situations? The study also analyzes the difference between the "masculine" and "feminine" elements of each of these marriages. The study is based on the Christian theological works of Emanuel Swedenborg. I hope you enjoy it, and find it useful.  You can read it here: Solomon Keal's Dissertation.  Watch the video of the presentation here.

The Creatress?

I just read a really fascinating number in Swedenborg's book Divine Love and Wisdom. The end of the number says, “Since we have been created to be recipients, then, and since we are recipients to the extent that we love God and are wise because of our love for God (that is, the extent to which we are moved by what comes from God and think as a result of that feeling), it therefore follows that the divine essence, the Creatress, is divine love and wisdom.” (DLW 33)

This is from the Dole translation, the New Century Edition of the Writings of Swedenborg. There is a footnote that follows the word 'Creatress.' In the note the translator says, "Swedenborg's use here of the feminine noun Creatrix, 'Creatress,' is striking. While it may be prompted by the fact that Essentia, 'essence,' is a feminine noun, there is no grammatical necessity for a noun to agree in gender with a noun with which it is in apposition. This feminine noun occurs again in [DLW] 262 and in True Christianity 178, in both instances in apposition with natura, 'nature'; in these instances, it is quite possible that 'nature' was visualized in female form."

In DLW 262, the translator translates the word as 'creatress,' but in that number it is obviously referring to the concept of 'mother nature' or nature as the source of everything in the universe as an appearance of truth or a false belief (similarly in TCR 178), while in DLW 33, the word 'Creatress' seems to be referring to the Lord, the Divine Love and Wisdom!

Most of the other translations of DLW 33 translate the Latin word Creatrix as "Creator." One translates Creatrix as "the creative cause." But there are other Latin words for "Creator": creator, genitor, conditor, plastes, aedificator, all of which are masculine words. But the Latin word creatrix, is a feminine word and according to William Whitaker's Words is properly translated as: "mother, she who brings forth; creator (of the world); authoress, creatress." So in many ways this NCE translation, while being perhaps a little controversial and confusing, is the most accurate translation of this particular portion of this passage. And I appreciate that.

However, as the footnote said, this is "striking." We are used to masculine language used in reference to the Lord. This is mostly because of the masculine image of Jehovah and Jesus presented in the Bible. But it does seem somehow fitting that in the book Divine Love and Wisdom, a discussion of the more philosophical side of what the Lord is, it would remind us that God is the source of both masculinity and femininity, with this striking reference to the "Creatress."

In a previous footnote in Divine Love and Wisdom, translator Jonathan Rose states that "The Latin original of this passage [DLW 18, a discussion of the fact that God is Human] contains no hint of God's being either male or female. Although the identification of Jesus in his transformed state as God is central to Swedenborg's theology, as is the related concept of God's humanity, Swedenborg seems stringently to avoid any indication of masculine or feminine gender in God. He consistently uses the neutral term homo, "a human," rather than a gendered term for God's humanity; and where he uses adjectives in the role of nouns as terms for God, such as "the Infinite," "the Divine," "the Divine Human," and "the Human," he casts them as neuter rather than feminine or masculine. (A possible exception to this rule is the use of Creatrix, a feminine noun for the creator; see note 31 below.) The present edition uses the pronoun "he" for God even though it introduces gender implications that are not present in the original, because (a) the text's strong emphasis on the oneness of God contraindicates the use of plural pronouns; (b) the English language has no established gender-neutral singular third-person pronoun; (c) the text's strong emphasis on the humanness of God contraindicates the use of "it"; and (d) the identification of Jesus with God would make any pronoun but "he" awkward." In other words, the complications of using the words "Them," "It," or "She," in reference to God, outweigh the complications of using the word "He."

I suppose one way of looking at this passage is that it is trying to point out that what most people think of as Mother Nature is actually the Lord. I think a liberal translation of this passage could be: “... it therefore follows that the divine essence, which is considered to be Mother Nature, is divine love and wisdom.” But that’s adding a lot of additional vocabulary that isn’t there in the Latin. The original Latin simply says: "sequitur, quod Divina Essentia, quae Creatrix, sit Divinus Amor et Divina Sapientia."

When it comes down to it, I like how this translation really shakes up the false assumption that we often aren’t careful enough with, which is that the Lord is somehow male. Jesus was male. But the Lord (The Divine Love and Wisdom, the Creator of Heaven and Earth) is not male. The Lord is the source of both masculinity and femininity. Both men and women are created in His image. "So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them." (Genesis 1:27)

Laying on of Hands

In my devotional reading I just read this passage in Numbers: "And you shall bring the Levites before the tabernacle of meeting, and you shall gather together the whole assembly of the children of Israel. So you shall bring the Levites before the Lord, and the children of Israel shall lay their hands on the Levites. ... After that the Levites shall go in to service the tabernacle of meeting." (Numbers 8:9,10,15)

Also in Secrets of Heaven: "It was similar with the laying on of hands when men were being consecrated, as the people did to the Levites, Num. 8:9, 10, 12, ... - the purpose being to confer power. And this is why in our own times the ceremonies of ordination and of blessing are accompanied by the laying on of hands." (AC 878.7)

I thought it was cool that the 'ordination' process for these Levites to work in the Tabernacle was accomplished by the laying on of hands from the congregation rather than from Moses or Aaron or the priests. Wouldn't that be a neat tradition for the ordination of our own ministers? To have members of the congregation lay their hands on the new minister.